


Sleepless Nights

by Kitexa



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Role Reversal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-19
Updated: 2012-11-19
Packaged: 2017-11-19 01:30:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/567510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kitexa/pseuds/Kitexa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles didn't sleep anymore.  Drabble until further notice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sleepless Nights

**Author's Note:**

> This started as a "Magic Anon" on tumblr, that evolved into a drabble that in turn evolved into an actual universe between a friend and I. Before that happened, I wrote this, and decided to post it because role reversal in this fandom fascinates me.

Charles did not like the night. He had, once, (when mama read him stories and sang before he slept) but that was a very long time ago. Before his abilities set in. 

Before the war. 

Under constant “watch and observation” (were one to put it mildly) he’d grown from relishing the night to fearing its arrival. “Please.” He remembers begging, (begging, of all humiliating things), sputtering spittle and blood (always so much blood) “I don’t want to see!”

But those eyes, that _smile_ merely curled with a click of the tongue and hurt Charles again and again until he did as he was told. 

During the day, he’d learned to stomach _(do as your told, don’t cross a line, don’t make him hurt you, be a good boy);_ endless blurs of _fearhungerpainsick_ buzzing like a hive inside his head. Use to make him cry; he’d grown out of that. 

He’d grown out of a lot of “use to’s” in his life.

And grown into several new ones. 

Telepathy was a tricky thing; it came with no instruction manual, no guide to stress his limitations. As far as he knew, the possibilities were endless. 

So Shaw had said, anyway. “Think about it, Charles.” (All in German, of course), “To bend the mind to your will as easily as one blinks; Magnificent.”

He wanted to choke the man that day. 

Still wanted to, actually. 

“Endless possibilities” stretched beyond the conscious. Come evening hours, he’d be prodded like a puppet (voodoo-influenced puppet but puppet nonetheless) and forced to tear down his walls (nets, really, back then. He’d had so little self-control…) and let his mind go. 

There’s a reason Charles can stomach horror films now. 

The subconscious realm—a place of personified fear and vicious imaginings—pushed the telepath into an insomniac’s lifestyle. Eyes open or closed, their nightmares played; over and over until he did cry; curse and sob and plead that some higher power would put him out of his misery.

Their misery. 

_Oh_ but it didn’t stop there. (It never stopped.) He’d wretch and tremble while Shaw took notes and six hours later he, Charles, would stand face to face with the man, woman or child who’s mind he’d slipped inside and dictate _back_ their darkest fears until they looked at him akin to the wide-eyed horror he gave Shaw. 

“A monster,” they’d think. “You’re a monster.”

“You’re not a monster,” Shaw would coo, with a shoulder squeeze or pat on the back or some hypocritical means of comfort that would be sucked away an hour later, “You’re evolved.”

 _Evolved,_ Charles thought afterwards, biting back the bitter bile, (Hypocrisy, thy name is Shaw) _evolved into a monster._

Twenty years later, that thought hadn’t changed.

He’d grown and developed but the night…the night remained the same.

It was always the same.

Dark. Suffocating. The stuff nightmares are made of. 

And Charles…

He didn’t sleep anymore.


End file.
